Stepping into Ambiguity: A Review of Uncanny Valley by Anna Wiener

Words By Abi Mechley

Published January 14, 2020 by Macmillan

Sometimes a book lands perfectly along the ley lines of past and future. Uncanny Valley by Anna Weiner is one such memoir. A reflection of life that is impossible to look away from, it masterfully outlines the past two decades’ rapid shift to a tech economy and the accompanying anxieties around privacy, surveillance, and technological dependency most of us have been trying to ignore.

Weiner, who ventured into the booming tech industry of 2010s
San Francisco, writes of beginning as an admittedly naïve twenty-something
experiencing first-hand the euphoria and anxiety of working in Silicon Valley. She
engages in a sweeping discussion of the tech industry and startup culture, interweaving
her own very personal journey as a perpetual outsider-on-the-inside.

Just like the industry it studies, Uncanny Valley operates
in contradictions: sincerity alongside performance, hope mixed with doubt,
childlike wonder given power and control. To see it all through Weiner’s eyes
is also to experience her gradual disenchantment, and her razor-sharp
observations frequently reflect the social balancing act that we’re all
attempting to navigate. Some of the funniest lines in the book are those that
deliver the most dread; they are so absurdly and blatantly real that laughing
is less a symptom of disbelief and more a sign of recognition.

One stand-out feature of the book is how nuanced a
perspective it takes. It would have been incredibly easy to write a narrative
solely of corruption, bad actors, how technology is making the world worse. And
Weiner doesn’t resist looking the biggest problems squarely in the face:
economic inequality, misogyny, racism, the ways in which the worst qualities of
the internet and technology are actually symptoms of success. But nothing is
overblown or taken out of context. Every scene is presented plainly, with
intense humanity, and she takes care to lay every card on the table—even when they
show her own flaws.

To show how easy it is to uphold an industry hell-bent on progress at any costs, Weiner implicates herself, showing how her personal desires for relationships, security, and meaningful work reinforce both her blindness to the industry’s problems (only halfway through the book does she begin to acknowledge that her company’s data collection is surveillance work), but also her early, impassioned belief that those profiting from the system are victims of it. Every time she places her trust in the system, the voice of her future self steps in, takes stock, lets us peek behind the curtain. She doesn’t use hindsight to put her optimism on trial; instead, she takes a measured look at her original assumptions alongside the nuanced reality she had to survive.

The experiences within Uncanny Valley are also
distinctly millennial, characterized by a search for greater purpose amidst
economic hardship and lack of meaning. As a narrator, Weiner is constantly
analyzing herself and others, observing with embarrassment the adolescent
culture cultivated by the startup industry while simultaneously wishing she could
exist fully in that space. And it’s millennial most of all in the
disillusionment she experiences, a commonality with today’s 20- and
30-somethings who spent their early adulthood crushed by student debt, struggling
to find living-wage jobs in the recession, bombarded by the 24/7 news cycle of climate
change and growing political unrest, and coming to terms with their individual powerlessness
in the face of billionaires and corporate monopolies. Should we work inside the
castle walls of capitalism, where at least we get healthcare and a decent wage,
even as our identities are subsumed? What about everyone else? Weiner doesn’t
claim to have the answers, but this book shows she’s drawing her line in the
sand.

At its heart, Uncanny Valley is a window into a world
many of us have only seen from a distance, a world some of us are all too
familiar with. Alongside other contemporary works like Jia Tolentino’s Trick
Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion and Susan Fowler’s Whistleblower:
My Journey to Silicon Valley and Fight for Justice at Uber, Weiner has
expertly shared her own experiences and offered insight into the technological
movement that is shaping our futures.

Abi Mechley

Abi Mechley is a Cincinnati-based editor and graduated from Miami University with a BA in professional writing and strategic communication. She currently works at the Public Library of Cincinnati & Hamilton County and finds passion in connecting with the community. Her evenings are spent writing, creating 2D animations, and reading a lot of nonfiction.